Farooq Abdullah withdraws his name from consideration as joint opposition's presidential candidate

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, June 18

National conference patron Farooq Abdullah on Saturday withdrew from the race for a joint opposition candidate for the July 18 presidential election.

In a statement issued here, Abdullah, the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, said he was honoured that his name was proposed in the June 15 meeting of opposition parties as a joint candidate for the post of the office of President of India.

“I am very grateful to Mamata Banerjee for proposing my name. I am also grateful to all the senior leaders who have offered to support me. However I have taken a few days to discuss this unexpected development with my family and senior colleagues. I have a lot more active politics ahead of me and look forward to making a positive contribution in the service of Jammu and Kashmir and the country. I would therefore like to respectfully withdraw my name from consideration for the presidential candidate and I look forward to supporting the joint opposition consensus candidate,” Abdullah said in a signed statement released by his party, the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference.

Abdullah also said he was deeply touched by the support he had received by being proposed to run for the highest office in the country and had received a number of calls from opposition leaders supporting his candidature.

“I believe that Jammu and Kashmir is passing through a critical juncture and my efforts are required to help navigate these uncertain times,” said Abdullah’s whose withdrawal from the race comes a day after a prominent opposition party, the Shiv Sena, said names of Farooq Abdullah and Gopalkrishna Gandhi were regular and often cropped up during discussions at the time of presidential elections but lacked the heft and the personality to make the presidential election a tightly fought race.

Shiv Sena also argued that the opposition needed to be serious about the July 18 election because if it failed to field a strong candidate for the presidential post, people would ask how it would find a capable prime minister in 2024.

Earlier, NCP chief Sharad Pawar had declined the collective opposition demand to run for the office of President of India. Mahatma Gandhi‘s grandson Gopalkrishna Gandhi is, however, still in the race and it remains to be seen whether all opposition parties can agree on his name.

Further parleys are expected beginning this evening when Pawar again arrives in Delhi to take the discussions forward. The opposition has said it will finalise a common candidate for the election by June 21.

Eighteen opposition parties including the Congress, Left and TMC had in 2017 backed Gopalkrishna Gandhi as a consensus opposition candidate to fight against NDA’s M Venkaiah Naidu in the vice presidential election. Naidu had won the election.